Top Three Questions To Start Your Coaching Business

by Evercoach Team November 27, 2014

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Starting your coaching business is like being given an empty plot of land to build on.

You’ve got a predetermined set of tools, a couple of nice ideas and all the time in the world to start building.

But, the ultimate question here is, what are you going to build?

Do you want to build a whole coaching empire? With legions of coaches who work alongside you to change the world?

Do you to build a standalone coaching program, and have time be completely your own? Whilst, being able to completely impact as many lives as you can?

Or, do you want to build something in between the two?

There is no right or wrong answer here, only the end goal that appeals to youthe most.

However, when you’re starting out your coaching business you’re not quite sure what you want to build. All you want to do is get yourself into the trenches and start coaching people, straight away.

And, that fire in your belly is commendable. As a coach it will take you farther and wider than you could ever imagine.

But, all that fire and passion, without a blueprint to build from, can easily become time wasted:

Consulting with the wrong people Not understanding who your ideal client is Helping people for little (or no) return Coaching the wrong clients

Although coaching comes down to more than money, and helping as many people as possible, you’ve still got a mortgage to pay and mouths to feed.

Wasting your time on these matters (and many others) isn’t going to fix any of those problems.

In this article, then, you’re going to learn the three most important questionsto ask yourself when starting your coaching business. And, how they can help you build a prominent, thriving, targeting coaching business.

Before You Read Anymore…Go and grab yourself:

A coffee A notebook (or paper) A pen Somewhere comfortable to sit

The coffee and comfortable chair are for you enjoy the information. The notebook and pen are there for you to absorb, take notes and follow the tasks as you go through.

So, if you’re ready, let’s get started…

Question #1: Why Am I Doing This?The first question you need to be able to answer as a coach is this, “Why am I a coach?”

Because, well, it’s the underlying foundation of the business you’re trying to build on your plot of land. Without understanding the why behind your coaching, you’re going to struggle to get people to buy into your system.

To fully understand this concept, you need to first consider a key component to your business.

Your Business Tells A Story

If you’ve never had the chance, go and pick yourself up a copy of ‘All marketersare liars tell stories’ by Seth Godin.

In his infinite wisdom, Seth points out that your business tells a story to a potential client. And, those consumers buy into a product or a service based on the story it tells them.

Which, if you’re not aware of it yet, is a really powerful piece of knowledge to have.

Think about the device you’re reading this article on; why did you buy it?

If you’re reading this on a tablet, it could be because you’ve told yourself a story about reading information on the move, or not needing to carry a big laptop around with you everywhere you go.

If it’s a MacBook, you might have told yourself a story that you wanted a high-performance laptop that connects with your phone, tablet or television.

But, regardless of the device, you bought it because that item told you a story.

My question to you, then, is what story are you trying to tell your clients?

One of knowledge, guidance and unfaltering support? One of success, pushing people to their limits and ruthless goal setting? One of patience, fulfilment and taking baby steps along the path? Or, a story of something completely different?

There is no right answer to these questions. There is only your answer. By being able to identify the story your business tells, the easier it will be to find success.

Start With Why

The key to finding your story, is the question at the title of this section, “Why am I doing this?”

As Simon Sinek famously points out in his TED Talk and his book, Start With Why, he point out that ‘why’ is the heart at any successful business, campaign or movement.

It inspires people to take action, your action, because your why resonates with their why. You talk to their emotions, and then explain what you can do. Instead of telling them what you can do, and hoping it resonates with their emotions.

Let’s illustrate this with an example:

If you were looking to hire a coach to help you improve your lacklustre skills at Market-ing, which of these pitches sounds more appealing?

“If you choose coaching with me, I’m able to help you reach a greater audience, under-stand the target market for your product and show you a range of different methods to make the most of any budget”

Or,

“ I believe that marketing is the key component to making your business flourish. And, all marketing should be simple and easy to learn. With my teachings you can identify your target audience, learn how to understand what they want and acquire a range of different methods to adapt to any budget.”

If you’re like any other human being, the second statement is a much more powerful mission statement for you to buy into.

The difference?

The first pitch is just a list of things a coach can do:

Reach a greater audience Manage your budget Identify your audience

All of these are the basics of what you would expect from a marketing coach, right?

However, the second is filled with a why.

It states that you believe marketing is the lifeblood of any business, and thatlearning these skills should be simple and effective.

Which if you also believe that marketing is the lifeblood of a business, and you want to learn those skills simply and effectively, the why is going to resonate deeply with you.

How To Find Your Why

Consider a few questions:

What compels you to coach? What made you quit your job and go, “Hey, I’m going to start coaching people?” What drives you to help your clients succeed? Why, on a dark December morning when it’s minus 4 degrees, do you drag your-

self out of bed to make coaching calls?

The answer to these is never profit. And, it is rarely ever material.

Instead, it comes deep from within a part of you. A desire to help, a willingness to teach, an overwhelming sense that what you know is of real importance to someone.

For example, a personal trainer may think, ”I want to create a fitter, more health con-scious world”. 

Or a life coach may think, “I want to empower people to believe in themselves and tackle all obstacles full of incredible confidence”.

Whatever it is, it’s vital you understand this component. Because, when you understand the why, you can begin to focus on the who.

Practice Task

In your notebook, take a second to think of all the different ‘whys’ behind your coaching business.

If you’re unsure, write 4 or 5 of them down, head for a coffee, and see which one res-onates with you the most when you come back.

Then, write it in big letters and stick it somewhere you can see it, each and every day.

Question #2: Who Am I Trying To Serve?The second most important question when building your coaching business is,“Who am I trying to serve?”

Who (in great detail) is the ideal coaching client?

What is their goal? What is their most common obstacle?

Why do they want to achieve that they’re looking for? Where does this client spend their time? What strategies work for this client? How does this client think?

When you understand the ‘who’, and you can combine that with a powerful ‘why’, you’ve started to create a real vision for your coaching.

The quickest way to identify your who, analytically? By using a SWOT Analysis.

SWOT Did You Say?

A SWOT analysis is a way of breaking down and analysing the pro’s and con’s of a potential project of business venture.

However, it can also be a great tool in discovering who the ideal coaching client for you is.

This analysis is made up of four different components:

Strengths Weaknesses Opportunities Threats

These components make up the basis of understanding just who your clients is, and what they’re going to need from you (which you’ll discover more about in the next section).

So, grab your notebook again and work through this analysis with me:

List One: What Strengths Does Your Client Have?

Have a think of strong character traits the person you ideally want to be working with has.

Traits such as:

High levels of motivation Leaders in a community Great work ethic Charismatic Confident Bold

Which of these (or any others you can think of) does your perfect client demonstrate?

List Two: What Weaknesses Does Your Client Have?

Which of your ideal clients traits stand in their way of success?

Lack of productivity Lack of confidence Emotional or Stress related issues? Lack of motivation?

Identify whatever you feel the people you’re looking to coach would struggle with, and add them to a separate list.

List Three: What Opportunities Does Your Client Have?

What are the main opportunities that your client has, and would aspire to achieve?

Think of this section as the ‘common goals’ of your ideal client(s).

Promotion? Better health? Improved spirituality? Improved skills?

Extra income?

Anything that pertains to your area of expertise, or the field you’re looking to coach in, applies here.

List Four: What Obstacles Stand In Your Clients Way?

What com mon excuses , potential obstacles or common themes get in the way of your ideal clients success?

Lack of time? Lack of money? Family ties? Lack of knowledge? Lack of skills? Poor Quality Network?

Anything that can (and will) get in the way of your client moving from their first session with you, to their end goal, should go in this list.

Bonus List: Where Does Your Client Spend Their Time?

On top of the initial SWOT Analysis, add a final list of all the places your ideal clients spends their time:

Are they always in the office? Do they roam Internet forums looking for guidance? Do they read blogs, or do they prefer books? Are they interested in Podcasts? Do they attend networking events?

Think of all the places your potential client would be likely to be found.

Why Is All This Important?

By now, you should have a list of everything you could hypothetically know about your ideal client.

And, to be frank, you’re rarely going to find the perfect client. Because, people are all different.

It’s important to understand who your service is suited to, so you can spend your time focusing on how you can solve their problems. It also helps when it comes to marketing or selling your business too.

Let’s take two (made up) Personal Trainers and compare their two ideal clients, so you can see what I mean.

The first trainer, David, ideally wants a ‘Highly motivated athletes, already established at sports club, who are looking to increase their standard or play for a better team’.

Whilst the second trainer, Jonathon, wants to work with ‘Overweight people, who strug-gle with their confidence but are motivated to make a change in their lives on a tight schedule’.

David’s target audience is completely different to Jonathon’s, even though at the heart of it, they are both personal trainers. Jonathon would get no enjoyment (and the clients no benefit) from working with someone suited to David’s style of training.

So, understand who is at the heart of your business is of incredible importance for you in terms of:

Service: creating strategies that work for the right person. Results: working with someone who will get the most benefit from your

coaching. Marketing: Being in front of the right person for the right service.

Practice Task

Try to combine your who and your why.

Think of all the important reasons behind why you’ve become a coach, and how they resonate with the ideal person you want to coach.

Write it down, and display it in big letters once more.

When you have this information present all the time, it’s much easier to put yourself in front of the right person and give them the right information to move forward.

Question #3: How Can I Serve Them Powerfully?You’ve got your why and your who, now it’s time to focus on the how.

How are you going to serve your clients to the best of your abilities?

What services will you provide? What teaching style best? Do you need to micro-manage your clients, or let them roam free? Are you going to speak to them once a week or twice a month? What additional extras can you add that will make your service even better?

If you want any ideas on this before you read on, feel free to check out this article on how to serve your clients more pow er fully .

But, if you’ve been building a house so far, you’ve laid the foundation with they why, decided who is going to live there – this is the part where you furnish the house with them in mind.

So, what are you going to put in it?

At the moment you’re probably thinking, “Well, I’m going to offer ‘X’ sessions a month and go from there”.

Because, that’s how you’re wired to think as a coach when you’re first starting out. Ses-sions equates to time with you, and time with you equals results. It’s simple math, right?

Well, not quite.

As a coach, you’re a problem solver.

And, this is the part where you figure out how you’re going to solve your client’s problems.

To do that, you need to think like a novelist.

Getting To How

When someone writes a Crime Fiction novel, like Sherlock Holmes, the author doesn’t start at the beginning and work forward.

Instead, they start with the crime being solved and work backwards. Scattering the clues and putting characters in the right (or wrong) places throughout the novel, until you get back to the beginning and everything is just fine and dandy.

This is because trying to piece together a puzzle is really hard when you don’t know what the end product looks like.

Knowing what the end product is, you can work towards what it is supposed to look like. Much like building IKEA furniture or assembling a jigsaw puzzle.

When it comes to assembling your coaching package, keeping the who in mind, you need to work backwards from your clients end goal, to the start of your coaching package.

What does your ideal client want to achieve? Promotion, income, knowl-edge, better relationships?

What works well for my ideal client? Videos, coaching calls, e-mails, coach-ing documents, a mix of everything?

What package can I build around that? Step-by-step guides, weekly coach-ing calls, webinars, mastermind groups?

From there, you can start to build your ideal coaching package.

Remember To Keep The Person In Mind

What works for you, might not work for your clients. So, remember that when you are structuring your content, products and services.

If your ideal client is engineer like, they’re going to want detail without any ‘fluff’.

If your ideal client is a photographer or designer, they may prefer something more interactive.

And, if your ideal client is a complete beginner at your subject, then something basic, simple and accessible might be the best choice.

Remember to keep the person you’re coaching in mind throughout the construction process, and just because something felt like your best tip, doesn’t mean it’s theirs.

Much Ado About Ideals

In this article the word ideal has been thrown around a lot.

Your ideal situation, your ideal client, your ideal coaching package.

Right now, some of you are thinking, “But the ideal doesn’t exist in the real world”.And, you would be right. Sort of.

Just because the ideal doesn’t 100% exist all the time doesn’t mean you can’t build in preparation for it. And, building your coaching business from the beginning, around the ideal people, makes finding, outlining and guiding your products towards the right clients much, much easier.

So, although the ideal may not always exist, build for it anyway, because they just might come along.

Practice Task

Using the information you have armed yourself with, and the questions you’ve answered, build your ideal coaching package for your ideal client.

How many sessions per month is it? What tools do you use to coach? How much does it cost? How can you coach your clients powerfully?

Once you’ve done that, you’re ready for the final challenge…

The Exclusive 30-Day Challenge

Here at Evercoach, pushing coaches to be their absolute best is a big part of ourwhy. Because, it helps you grow and flourish as a coach in a much quicker way.

And, in our tribe there is one particular challenge that really makes a difference to our coaches, and could have a huge impact on you, too.

That challenge?

The 100 Powerful Conversation’s Challenge

Basically, you have 30 days to schedule (not complete) 100 powerful conversations with people.

This is the perfect opportunity to begin to reach out to those ideal clients mentioned earlier, from a place of service.

You can either use this as a learning curve to find out the why that resonates with your ideal client, the who in what they’re really like and the how by asking them what will really help them.

The main object of this challenge is to serve someone so powerfully that they never forget the conversation with you.

And, if you spend 200 hundred hours talking to people, you’re going to become more efficient at:

Consulting with your ideal clients Understanding their needs Helping those people move forward Having real, powerful interactions with people

Sure, some people will have a conversation with you and never speak to you again.

Some will have taken a lot from the conversation and become interested in coaching.

Others? Well, you’ll blow their mind and they’ll want coaching from you immediately.

But, the important part here is that now you’ve built your coaching on that empty plot of land, now is the time to start showing people around.

Ready? Lets go to work!